Unwise
by O'Donnell
Summary: HLV. Sherlock returns to Baker Street from the drugs den and the lab at Bart's. So what is Mycroft doing sitting on the stairs like Christopher Robin waiting for him? And why?


Unwise…..

How out of character is it to find Mycroft Holmes sitting on a dusty staircase and just waiting for his brother in the half light of early morning? This blocking near the start of _His Last Vow_ is so unusual it needs examining. So here we go!

Unwise…..

What in God's name am I doing, sitting here on the bottom step of the stairs in the dingy hallway of 221B, Baker Street? I never even did such things when I was a child, and waiting like this is hardly an occupation for a grown man. Waiting in the half light with my chin resting on the handle of my umbrella and a scowl on my face I can actually _feel._ A sign of a bad mood, high dudgeon and no breakfast. Oh well, at least no-one can see me.

The things I do for my brother. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. And nor would the cavalry I called in when Dr Watson alerted me that he had found my brother in a drugs den, to all intents and purposes as high as a kite. Again.

So now there are forensic scientists scouring the flat - their flat, his flat - for drugs. Again. Sometimes it feels like a hobby, this exhausting business of keeping my little brother on the straight and narrow. And sometimes it feels like a millstone around my neck.

Today it is a very irritating and exhausting millstone. I tell myself I should be grateful he is actually here to irritate me. And I am, I am. The past two years without him whilst he has been rattling around the world righting wrongs and putting his life in danger on a daily basis has been bad enough. I have worried and I have missed him in ways I had never thought possible.

Deeply worrying, the past two years have been, exceedingly stressful. I told him not to do it, that it was too dangerous, too much to undertake alone, even for him. He wouldn't listen. I still think I was right.

He would have none of it, of course. His hatred of Moriarty and his determination to rid the world of that bottled spider and his tangled world wide web of evil would neither be stopped nor diverted. And so he -with singular passion - and I - with essential pragmatism -came up with a plan to lure Moriarty into a trap.

With the only lure we could offer that would work. My brother himself. Whose reputation and life had to be destroyed by Moriarty in a way that would allow him to seem to be dead to go undercover and then destroy the web. To sacrifice himself for the greater good of stopping Moriarty. I could not stop my brother. And yes, I did try.

Even after Moriarty so unexpectedly killed himself on the roof top of Bart's Sherlock was determined to press on. Had no choice, he said. Because my brother's death - or should I say 'removal from the world'- meant the survival of others, and as my brother has never felt his life to be worth a pin's fee, he still deemed his sacrifice sensible, practical, merely logical..

But my brother was gone for two long years. I did not see him, did not know what he was up to, not really….not until afterwards, as with most of his actions throughout his entire life, really. Oh, yes, reports of his missions came back to me - eventually - and sometimes terrified the life out of me. Too dangerous, too much, even for him. I always knew it.

So when, on the final leg of taking down Moriarty's network, word trickled through that he had been captured in Serbia and was under torture, I was hardly surprised. When days and weeks went by and he did not reappear, I had no option but to act. I had, for too long, been expecting something like this.

Fieldwork - me! I had not been out in the field for years. But I really had no choice. I had sent him out, I had to fetch him home. And this time nothing, not even Sherlock himself, was going to stop me. Did the language crash course in half time, fudged an identity and alibi, and went undercover to fetch him back. He might not like me stepping in to save him, but he would just have to put up with it. Enough was enough.

I don't think I have recovered from doing that yet. Not sure I ever will, but don't tell him. He would never let me live down such pathetic subjectivity on my part. Not in his eyes nor in mine, to be honest. Brother rescuing brother? Oh please! What is this, a Dumas novel? A touch of the Barbara Cartland's?

Nothing to do with courage or danger, that is implicit. Neither of those are characteristics we need to reveal to prove anything to ourselves, to the outside world, or our masters. But the equation was quite simple. Sherlock needed bringing home, and I had to do it. Complete our brief, square the circle, demand from no-one else any task we had to be prepared to do, and able to do, ourselves.

Nothing could go wrong, after all. The deputy head of our Serbian station and I did our homework thoroughly. We had the paperwork, the uniforms, the car, the language, the authority and the sheer chutzpah. I had no doubt we would find Sherlock and bring him out. No room for doubt either, come to that.

What I had not expected, nor allowed for, was the collateral damage. I had forgotten, you see. Forgotten the consequences of action. I have been for far too long making bloodless decisions from behind a desk. Had forgotten about blood, sweat, sacrifice, tears, injury.

Had forgotten all that until I walked into an underground cell in a remote Serbian army blockhouse and saw something hanging in chains I did not even recognise as my brother.

Perhaps, on reflection, that was for the best. I was able to march in, dressed in my frankly ridiculous, almost fancy dress standard, Eastern bloc greatcoat and Cossack hat over the terribly itchy Major's uniform and throw my weight about while the cretins in charge begged to impress me and demonstrate their wonderfully subtle interrogation technique on the traitor, the _izdajica._

So I sat myself down in a corner, leant across a table and put my feet up with a drink of something noxious and plebian but at least hot in that dank and penetrating cold, and watched what I thought was the warm up act before Sherlock appeared as some oaf beat seven bells of hell out of whatever was hanging there.

I looked at the prisoner only because it was expected of me. A tall, gaunt man, wearing only thin prison trousers despite the cold, crucifix manacled with arms outstretched low to maximise pain of position and pain in breathing, hardly able to stand in a bloodied gutter on frozen bare feet with a couple of toenails missing, and yet unable to fall. His was not a holding or restraint position designated by the Geneva Convention, and his arms, shoulders and back must be on fire. Yet he remained motionless and mute.

A tangle of long matted hair masked the face of the bent head that seemed semi conscious, as an occasional trail of spittle leaked from the half open mouth unheeding onto the floor as the prisoner stifled coughs and sniffs. Tears or snot? Fear? Cold? Pneumonia? Restricted breathing because of the manacled position?

I found myself fascinated by this, even as the interrogator with his tattooed arms, shaven head and baseball bat - so boringly typical of this sort of thing, but quite effective in the circumstances, I assumed - gestured he was about to demonstrate his abilities to me.

I nodded without interest until the solid crack of wood on bone made me flinch and fight to keep a neutral, vaguely encouraging attitude, and repress my revulsion.

The interrogator laughed as the prisoner spun in his chains in reaction to the blows, making the metal cuffed wrists bleed freely again and opening up new wounds on the already deeply damaged back. Really, it was enough to make a person sick.

The next blow drew speech as well as blood.

" _Nista da ti kazem!"_ said a low and angry voice. " _Astari ne ma nuria de umrem."_ Which I translated as 'Nothing to tell you. Leave me alone to die.'

The interrogator snarled, grabbed a handful of hair and hauled the head up and forward, spitting into the prisoner's face and coming out with a tirade of abuse and obscenities I could not hope to translate in decent company.

" _Kako divan,"_ said the prisoner, and earned himself a stinging blow to the back of the head. 'How delightful!' he had said.

I gagged. Because that was when I knew. When I finally recognised the thing hanging in the chains as my brother. Half rose from my seat to do something - anything - but that was when he started talking to his interrogator. Softly, rapidly, faster than I could hear or fully understand. Something about the man's life history, his bathroom, his wife, his wife's affair…the interrogator looked deep into his victim's eyes, dropped the length of piping he had just picked up as the new weapon being favoured over the bat, and ran out, presumably to catch his wife doing whatever it was she would be doing.

I said something in Serbian - because who knew if there was someone listening at the open door - rose and walked across to my brother and lifted his head by the hair. Whispered to him in English. About what was happening at home, why he was needed. I wasn't sure if he understood or had even heard me, he was far from himself. But when I eventually spoke his name and he knew it was really me, he smiled his rare heartbreakingly angelic smile. And then passed out.

After that things happened quickly. I browbeat the boy guard in the corridor to help me heft Sherlock's body out to the car and then it was left to myself and Garvin _(Make note to recommend for promotion; fast, reliable, multi tasker and calm under pressure_ ) to get Sherlock away and clear.

I do not wish to recall the stop we made to administer first aid and morphine and finally see just what a state he was in. How we stretched him out along the back seat of the Zil limousine to dress the worst of his wounds, wrap him in blankets to contend the hypothermia and try to get him warm again.

Nor to remember the stench of him and the sweat and blood and shit he left on the car's upholstery. Nor how I sat with his head in my lap and then held him tight to me in the car as he struggled half upright when the drug induced nightmares started, to keep him from falling off the rear seat while Garvin drove us ever onwards towards a private jet on a secret runway.

Closed the glass partition between front and back and asked Garvin to turn on the radio; A Stravinsky symphony emerged that I will never be able to listen to again without hearing the groans and mutterings from the suffering animal that was Sherlock then.

Nor the medication we gave him on the plane and when we had him home, to bring him back to himself as fast as we could (faster than sanity, faster than we should have dared) like some laboratory rat so he could foil the urgent, treasonous, horrible New Gunpowder Plot with his unique and irreplaceable brilliance. You would not treat an animal, work an animal into the ground, like that. I do know! But this is Sherlock, the situation was beyond grave, so no normal rules could apply. Normal rules have applied to my brother at times, despite his best efforts. I know because I make sure of that.

He saved hundreds of lives and the British constitution that day. Proved us right to fetch him home as and when we did, push him past his limits. But you must remember; he is like a racehorse, my brother. The harder you work him, the more you push him, the better he is and the more he achieves. I have to mention this because generally speaking he and I are the only people who recognise this and understand how it works.

Yes. Even though he should have been in a hospital bed recovering. But when he finally had the chance to be in a hospital bed recovering, it was too late for that nicety. He had resumed contact with Watson and Lestrade and Hooper, had returned to Baker Street and Mrs Hudson. And it was too late to go back by then because everyone has their own expectations of him and what he should and could do. Sometimes these expectations are simply too high. And yes, I do know I am guilty of that myself, thank you for mentioning it.

Anyway, that is just what he does. My invulnerable, impregnable, impossible little brother Sherlock Holmes.

And the tragedy of it all is that nobody - nobody - realised how ill and hurt and lost he was. Is. Because Sherlock does not show any of those things, those feelings he hates so much, to other people. Which has left me to watch his back again, and to pick up the pieces again, in a way he has rarely ever allowed me to in the past. Because I know, and I have seen. And feel guilty.

So perhaps I have over reacted this morning.

When Watson phoned and told me he had found Sherlock filthy and high in a drugs den I had been expecting that, or something very like that, for all the weeks since his return. So I called in the scientists to search his flat for drugs. To save him from what he considered his lifeline, protect him from himself, and to reassure him some things never change and never will. Me. Standing between him and himself.

But as I stood there in the middle of the sitting room of that familiar shabby flat, while strangers pored over his home and his things, I had an unusual feeling of dislocation, of alienation; a shaft of something that might actually be guilt. As if by doing my best to save him, I also was betraying Sherlock by doing this, by not trusting my little brother but jumping to a conclusion about him that might not necessarily be correct.

I had not trusted him to save himself, you see. Only trusted him to save the country, the constitution, his friends. I suddenly realised with a shock. I had not waited for an explanation from him as to why he was in a drugs den, nor given him the benefit of any doubt, not even the basic assumption of innocence until proven guilty.

After waiting and expecting and being on edge for so long, I had been so frightened for him I had leapt before I looked. I now realise with some unease that I may have actually betrayed him.

But I could not now stop the process I had begun. So I trudged wearily down the stairs, feeling ashamed and miserable in ways that are normally totally alien to me, hoping the search would be complete before Sherlock returned with John and the whole thing could be done and finished and forgotten before they became visible and Sherlock knew what I had done.

Standing in the hallway was awkward; I felt like an encyclopaedia salesman waiting for an order. Superfluous, at a disadvantage, unnecessary. So I sit down on that step and try to become my usual cold and objective self again. I had made the rare mistake of letting my heart rule my head about this. For Sherlock's safety. Because I am so frightened for him.

I think I might have dozed.

Suddenly the front door of 221B slams open and Sherlock appears. Watson by his side, and they fill the space between them, but all I can see is my little brother.

Hair greasy and slicked back, forehead sweaty, eyes black and empty with anger, shoulders stooped, feet shambling, dressed in appalling jogging pants and what I believe is called a hoodie. He looks ill and wrecked and beyond endurance. My heart lurches at the sight. And he is not pleased to see me there.

He opens his mouth to snarl something my way, but I get my word in first.

"Well then, Sherlock. Back on the sauce?" I cannot help the sarcastic tone. But it always jolts him into something like normality when under stress. And Good Lord, he looks so much under stress.

"What are you doing here?" he demands scornfully. He seems tired and somehow disorientated. Is he high? Really? And whatever had he taken to look like this?

"I phoned him."

John Watson, standing doggedly by Sherlock's side, speaks up and drags his friend's concentration from me, owns up to his actions like the doctor and soldier that he was. Knowing Sherlock would be angry at my interference.

So now I but in to save him the tongue lashing my brother will inevitably turn on him. Instead of on me.

Because although I can see he no longer understand or empathises with my brother like he used to, Watson is still firmly trying to do his best.

"The siren call of old habits," I ooze between the cracks of their friendship before either can verbally attack the other. "How very like Uncle Rudy - though in many ways cross dressing would have been a wiser path for you," I continue. I can hear myself, my tongue running away with me due to nerves I normally never suffer from, but I have no idea what I am talking about. Sherlock had been too young to ever meet Uncle Rudy, and would not have cared, or bothered to remember him in all his eccentricity, even if he had. I am waffling, I realise with horror. It is an unusual and rarely displayed trait and does not become me.

"'Course I bloody phoned him," breaks in Watson defensively as Sherlock - seeming not to hear me - turns hot and angry eyes towards his friend. Former friend?

"Course he bloody did!" I repeat, deflecting again, supporting Watson's actions, showing I approve.

I never usually swear and neither does John Watson (well, not in public anyway), so it is interesting to hear us both do so. My brother can easily tax the patience of a saint, and neither John nor I are saints. We are both as clearly stressed as each other. How very interesting.

"Now," I continue briskly before my brother can interrupt, "Now; save me a little time. Where should we be looking?"

Sherlock blindly repeats the 'we?' and Philip Anderson, hearing us talking, calls Sherlock's name down from the flat above.

Sherlock's head goes up. He explodes: "For God's sake…." and storms up the stairs, barely giving me time or space to sidle across my step out of his way. Watson and I roll our eyes and gasp at each other, Watson slightly shaking his head and blowing out his cheeks in reaction to the fallout.

We follow him upstairs more slowly, expecting disaster. But instead of tearing into Anderson as he normally would, Sherlock simply says

"Anderson…."

And when the forensic specialist holds up his hands, all placatory and responds,

"….I'm sorry, Sherlock, it's for your own good….."

my brother merely gives a deep sigh of resignation to Anderson and his assistant Miss Benjamin, flips up his hood, turns away from them dismissively and steps into his grey leather chair, curling up on his side and laying his head on the chair arm, closing his eyes and pushing the outside world away.

This is so untypical that Watson and I exchange a look, Watson, as ever, going to Sherlock's side.

"You are a celebrity these days," I say firmly to Sherlock while standing protectively close to Anderson in the kitchen. Just in case. For Sherlock is being strange and volatile, and his negative attitude to Anderson is well known. Some things never change. "You can't afford a drugs habit."

"I don't _have_ a drugs habit," he snaps at me, flashes open heavy almost disorientated eyes. He clearly has not seen himself.

John grumbles something about his chair having been moved, and he and Sherlock snipe briefly and sarcastically, and so very untypically at each other: "Well, it's good to be missed," Watson jokes with an uncharacteristic repressed bitterness neither Sherlock nor I miss.

"Well, you were gone. I saw an opportunity," Sherlock snarls back. And I look and listen in amazement. Sherlock never talks to John Watson like that; never defends himself verbally like that either, not ever. What depths of pain have those eight words been dragged up from?

My heart lurches. This is not right. This is not what their relationship has been and should now be again. Sherlock has assured me Watson has forgiven him for being away for two years; I have told him I simply do not understand why he even felt he needed to apologise for his sacrifice, for saving Watson's life by doing so, and that he really had no choice.

Watson has also told me Sherlock has apologised, and that he has forgiven him. How magnanimous of him. That was an unsought confidence from the doctor to which I could not find any answer that would have sounded as detached as I prefer to appear.

And I don't understand that either. Did Sherlock not merit an apology from Watson for the way he attacked him when they met again? Does Watson really not understand what has happened to my brother across the last two years? What caused him to fake his death in the first place? Has Sherlock been too proud and broken to tell his best friend everything that happened? What he had to do? And why?

Is he still Watson's best friend, though? Or is he not, despite being best man at Watson's wedding and everything else that has accrued between them? Was it a mistake for Sherlock to be under such pressure - from me - he had to go back to Watson for help to deal with the Gunpowder Plot? Because he had to solve the thing at speed with no-one and nowhere else to turn to? Which may have been Sherlock's problem, but was my fault, in the final analysis.

Should the two of them have done the discreet and conventional thing and stayed apart after Sherlock's return? A cooling off period, as it were? Just until things settled down? Was Sherlock - in his pain and depression and self loathing - trying to make Watson turn away from him now and occupy his new life with totality and with the dismissal of my brother from all that?

All these thoughts race through my head at panic speed. Because there is something wrong here. I cannot put my finger on it. Lots of somethings, too many of them, perhsps. Watson's attitude is off. The flat does not feel right, smell right. I wander about, scanning, observing, deducing.

Nothing and no-one helps me, and I am not yet used to - nor, to be frank, totally accepting of - the newly supportive and eager attitude of Anderson, who had always been Sherlock's enemy until the Fall, and then suddenly became his most loyal supporter, standing up against his employers, the police, the press - anyone. No, it's not that.

I talk to Anderson, asking what he has found - "there is nothing to find" - Sherlock interjects, and Anderson nods in agreement. I turn, wander into the hallway. Because there is something. I know it. I can sense it.

"Your bedroom door is shut," I observe, for something to observe. "You haven't been home all night. So why would a man who has never knowingly closed a door without the direct orders of his mother, do so on this occasion?"

I hear Sherlock sigh behind me, but still I reach forward for the knob of Sherlock's bedroom door. I look back over my shoulder and see Sherlock surge upright, flipping back his hood, trying and failing to contain something that looks like alarm. I start to turn the door knob.

"OK, Just stop. Point taken"

I am not imagining things and not over reacting either, because Watson, who has been watching Sherlock with a quiet fierce concentration all this time, breathes - "Jesus, Sherlock," - in response, warning, disgust, even?

I turn and start walking softly back, eyes tight on my brother. Trying to gauge whether breaking his self control now, right now, to try and reach down into his secrets will have any useful result at this moment other than another violent and mutually demeaning argument.

"Have to phone our parents, of course," I say in as grandiose and pompous big-brotherly manner as I can muster; for I am pushing him hard now. "In Oklahoma. Won't be the first time that your substance abuse has wreaked havoc with their line dancing."

What is this rubbish coming out of my mouth? Is bringing Sherlock to the edge destroying my own self control too? In a moment he will be asking me if I can hear myself…..

Sherlock stands up and steps closer to me, looking me in the eye. I swallow hard. I see no humour in the depths of those winter storm coloured eyes, none of his usual spark at sparring. His eyes are dark and dead and empty, and something twists in my gut.

"This is not what you think," he affirms with a dry and deadly power of immense quietness that is quite chilling. "This is for a case."

I have heard that excuse far too often.

"What case could possibly justify this?" I demand scathingly, disbelievingly.

"Magnussen," Sherlock breathes quietly. "Charles Augustus Magnussen."

This is not what I have expected. I feel my superior smile drop to the floor and my face go blank.

Magnussen. Was it coincidence that the Danish newspaper magnate millionaire has recently bumped up the government surveillance lists from Person Of Interest to Code Yellow? Were the two things related?

At that moment, that very second, things could have changed. I know that now, but unfortunately I did not know that then.

The lethal path of pain and destruction that followed could have been deflected or avoided altogether. But I did not know - then - that my colleague Lady Elizabeth Smallwood had brought her own personal case regarding Magnussen to Sherlock to resolve. And that Sherlock, ever the moral keeper of secrets, even - or especially - from his own brother, kept his own counsel and did the right thing, and by so doing put us all on a path that would lead to the destruction of so many lives…..

So now I reel back from the shock and the coincidence, and drop into full protect, pretend, prohibit, mode. It was, God help me, a natural assumption that Sherlock was staving off boredom by going for the press barons he would be blaming for the attacks upon him that led to the blackening of his reputation and The Fall.

That Magnusson was just the first press baron he was going to take down in any obsession for justice or revenge. That this case is not so much a case as a self righteous whim.

Trying to gather my wits, I need Anderson and Benjamin out of the flat so I can discuss this with my brother in private. I go into cold and threatening mode and they scuttle out. Leaving just the three of us standing in the dining room facing each other down. And not for the first time.

Sherlock's face is blank, processing thought. Watson is looking bemused, half smiling. This is facetious of him. This is not the John Watson either Sherlock or I know. And I now have a new inkling into some of my brother's deepest fears.

I look away from Sherlock, giving him a moment to collect himself. Much as I may goad him, I do not want to watch him crumble. So I turn elsewhere.

"I hope I won't have to threaten you as well," I say sternly to Watson.

Watson rolls his eyes, looks across at Sherlock for a lead, smiles and says with mock seriousness: " Well, I think we'd both find that embarrassing."

He looks back at Sherlock, who snorts a laugh, releases tension, turns away from us both This is not good - not right! I concentrate on my brother.

"Magnussen is not your business," I state flatly.

Sherlock ducks his head, peers at me. His head comes up at last with something of his usual arrogance.

"Oh. You mean he's yours?"

I should tell him, I should warn, hint, suggest - _Oh, for God's sake, just tell him! -_ there is an increase in Magnussen's surveillance….but I don't. I can't. Not my nature. And I am off balanced by Sherlock and John's behaviour, singly and together. So out of pattern, and showing, however much I strive and fail to understand, whatever it is that is actually happening here I cannot as yet comprehend.

"You may consider him under my protection," I reply icily; although that is not what I mean at all. I mean to say 'be careful - he is dangerous - put yourself under my protection rather than go against him' but that is not how the words come out. I have spent too much of my life being economical with the truth, and now, when I need to be, I simply cannot do it.

"I consider you under his thumb," Sherlock snaps back with sneering silky control. I can see he is thinking that my attitude is simply proof that he is right, that Magnussen needs stopping - right now. I feel I am making everything worse, not better. I struggle for control in front of my fiercest and hardest and most knowing critic.

"If you go against Magnusson you will find yourself going against me," A last throw of the dice, head high, in the coldest clearest voice I can muster. Trying to snap Sherlock back into himself. It normally works.

"OK. I'll let you know if I notice," Sherlock seems to relax, slouches down, almost smiles. Does he feel my vehemence proves him right in his pursuit? His quiet determination now, when he is so far from his normal self, terrifies me. And so I have just given him all the ammunition he needs by letting him know Magnussen really is dangerous.

His shoulders relax, and he strolls behind me to the door. I take a breath, and he mutters, almost conversationally, "Er…what was I going to say? Oh, yes."

He opens the door and gestures me out. Waiting until I go, turning to face me. Conversation closed.

"Bye-bye," he says.

The blood rushes from my head. I can hear my brain banging against my temples. This is wrong. Dangerous. This is death. But how can I tell my brother that a deep instinct and premonition is screaming at me? Me! The Ice Man, the rational statesman, the fixer, the decider, the big brother who is never wrong?

I cannot even begin to say any of that.

I take a breath, moisten my lips. Close my eyes in frustration. Oh, Sherlock! My little brother…..my weakness.

"Unwise, brother mine," I say as coldly and calmly as I can manage.

And Sherlock pounces.

Faster than thought, faster than I can react, - _leg work, Sherlock! Not my forte! -_ he grabs my left wrist in a vicious hold, twists my arm savagely up behind my back so I drop my umbrella in shock (and pain and fear, if you must know), and then slams me face first into the wall.

It is unexpected, cruel. It hurts. We may lacerate each other with words, my brother and I, but we have never done physical violence to each other, not since we were children. I cry out in shock despite myself - and that is not what I do, either. My right arm is trapped painfully, awkwardly, between my body and the wall where I automatically braced it to try and save myself from having my face and teeth broken, from eating plaster.

My face hurts and my left arm is still being twisted viciously hard up and back into an unnatural position. He is relentless, and I freeze with something other people may call fear.

I realise it is not beyond my brother to break my arm. Not in the mood and state he is in. Not after all he has been through.

I can feel Sherlock's lean yet surprisingly powerful body hard and angry against me. The thought fleetingly crosses my mind: how long is it, how many years, since we actually touched each other? Not in anger, but in brotherly affection - a hug or a pat - or mere good manners - a handshake, a touch in passing? I cannot remember, and that is a sadness. But how we are. How we got to this.

Now I feel his warmth, smell the dirt and the sweat and the drugs on him. I want to vomit. This is a man who is normally fastidious about his cleanliness and grooming. This disregard is Sherlock at rock bottom of self loathing.

This is not my little brother playing cops and robbers. This is Sherlock at the edge, angry, on the verge of losing control. This is real. I stand frozen.

His hot ragged breath rasps against my neck and I can feel him breathing, rapid and shallow, fighting for control. Of both himself and of me. There is nothing I can or dare say now he is like this.

"Brother mine. Don't appall me when I'm high." His voice is a low growl, contained, full of threat.

Is he really high, or are the drugs his excuse for attacking me? But he still has enough control to call me brother; he has not gone past the point of no return, not yet. But I can feel it is a close run thing. And I need to know why.

Watson is suddenly there beside us. My peripheral vision notes he is crouched, poised for action, his eyes never leaving Sherlock's face. Something in this has concentrated him, jerked him out of the lack of connection he has so far displayed this morning.

I open my mouth to appeal to his very normality, his sense of fairness, his good manners. He has always been Sherlock's moral compass and social control before, but I am struck yet again that nothing is the same now, and his voice reaches me, rapid, frighteningly soft, as if even he is terrified of rousing a sleeping dragon.

"Mycroft, don't say another word. Just go. He could snap you in two, and right now I am slightly worried that he might."

Watson is intent, yet still seems oddly untouched by this, almost facetious. This is not the John either Sherlock or I know. At the moment, Sherlock does not care, but I do. No, this is not right!

An infinitesimal nod from Watson gets Sherlock to release me slowly from my frozen pose, and I try to pull delicately free of my brother's grip. But once committed to the move he releases my arm convulsively, as if flinging me away from him. I put my right hand to my left arm in a ridiculous childish instinct to rub it better, and cannot control a grimace of pain that Watson sees, but Sherlock, thankfully, does not.

He has spun silently away from me even as I turn to him in something like entreaty, (E _ntreaty? Me?)_ and moves away into the sitting room. Walking like a cat, soft and controlled in a way he has never been before this morning, his stance gives nothing away of that sudden violence apart from hunched shoulders, and there is absolutely no regret at his sudden yet frighteningly contained attack.

I am speechless. Sherlock may like to give every appearance of hating me to the outside world, but that is what we do to protect ourselves, what we have always done. He has never attacked me before, regardless of provocation. I am ….upset, I think.

But most upset at more evidence of the empty man Sherlock has become since the Fall. Quieter, harder, stronger, yes, but also darker somehow, more dangerous, more callous. And I don't think Watson sees or understands that yet.

For John Watson is half smiling at me now, and I am sure he does not understand what he has just seen. Not Sherlock being his usual driven, dominant self...but something and someone else. Someone different. Someone damaged. Although when I open my mouth to warn him about Sherlock he clearly does not want to know. For he quirks a look and advises: "Don't speak. Just leave. Oh!"

He sees, then bends down to retrieve, my umbrella and hands it back to me. Half smiles, opens his mouth and clears his throat as if intending to say something else. Something sarcastic, no doubt. He thinks I am a joke right now, and have been bested. He does not see….what I see.

So I really don't want to hear what he might have to say at this moment. Because he will be wrong, and I will be right, and he will resent me for it. In the final analysis I do not want to have to spell it out to him; to show John Watson he is no longer the man we knew before The Fall, to reveal the fragile, brittle thing my brother has become.

I clutch my umbrella and spin away without another word. For what can I say? Almost run down the stairs and am relieved not to have to negotiate round Mrs Hudson on my way out.

My throat hurts and my eyes are burning. I look back and upwards as I step onto the pavement. Sherlock is at the sitting room window, watching me leave. He blanks me, ignores my raised hand, and slowly turns away.

I have never felt more compromised. Think, Holmes! Think! Walking will calm me and clear my head. Sherlock. Magnussen. Watson and his mysterious bride. I suck in a deep breath to steady myself. I have to begin to compute….

END

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End file.
